Delirium Vision
by cartoon moomba
Summary: One hundred stories on the thoughts and experiences of Kira, Eriol, Flym and Annabell. Background info and spoilers for Into The Summer Night.
1. Knight

_**Disclaimer: **__Final Fantasy VII and everything associated with it does not belong to me…_

**Warning: **this story will contain few and many spoilers for Into The Summer Night, so please don't read it if you don't like being spoiled. I'll have a warning in the beginning if it has an especially heavy spoiler in it.

**Knight  
**#22 - Knight

She doesn't need him like that, she thinks, refusing him as he offers.

She doesn't need anymore people helping her – Eriol and Flym are already doing that, and everything will be gone when she's back home again.

She's strong enough to defend herself, everybody knows, when she stands head-to-head with the smiling banshee that is the Sorceress's apprentice.

She doesn't need to fall in love, Irvine says one day, even as she finally starts cracking under the pressure unbestknown to anyone but herself and her cluttered mind.

She doesn't need a knight to help her, she cries when Flym and Eriol are gone and the only one who's offered is now on the enemy's side.

She doesn't need anyone at all to break her all over again.


	2. MirrorDoll

_**Disclaimer: **__Final Fantasy VII and everything associated with it does not belong to me…_

**Warning: **medium-heavy spoilers.

**Puppet  
**#7 – Mirror; #59 - Doll

The little girls in the mirrors like to call her many silly names.

The first time she takes a glimpse into the mirrors that make up the room, she can see nothing but herself and her red-eyed reflection, her eyes rimmed from the crying she's done. It makes her let out a breath of relief, knowing that, because everything That Girl said is lies and not the actual truth.

_(she'll never call her by her name because she just refuses to and nothing eriol says will change her mind.)_

Then the broken shards float by, and she screams.

The wide eye that isn't her own disappears and in moments, the sparkling mirror pieces reshape themselves into a full-sized mirror, the cracks crisscrossing like a spider's web again a black chalkboard. A red-haired, grey-eyed little girl stares into Kira's frightened face for a second before bursting out into childish laughter.

"What are you so scared for, silly?" She chides, her high-pitched voice like the windblown chimes _(perfection that's not quite right kira thinks)_. "There's nothing to be scared of here but _That Girl_." Her voice falls into a hushed whisper at the end, and at the familiar term used, Kira can't help but ask as calmly as she can.

"Who?"

The strange girl laughs again and twirls, her white dress flying up around her pale, skinny knees, before dropping in a crouch and leaning in on her side of the mirror. Kira begins to suspect that she is going crazy, because this place just _can't _be her mind.

"You, silly," the girl whispers, her large grey eyes twinkling in non-existent light and her smile stretched wide across her face. She laughs again at the young woman's paling, confused before, before springing up dancing away into the distance, her tilting voice chanting.

_"Our murderer, our murderer, our murderer!"_

The mirror shatters and then every wall is full of dancing little girls, singing the same little rhyme.

Kira stands in shock, letting the hurling shards of glass fly past her and into her skin – they leave miniscule, paper-thin scratches on her otherwise white face, giving her the look of a fragile China doll. Once she gets past that stage and after the tears don't come _(cause i've cried everything out already she thinks and berates, __**crybaby**__) _she notices that the still dancing redheaded girls aren't one and the same after all. She thinks, maybe this should reassure her somehow, but all it does it make her want to hurl all the more.

"What are you so scared of?" One girl calls, her voice mocking, and all the other girls laugh in perfect synch, their voices a humming melody.

"Don't be so scared, Miss Murderer!" A younger girl yells, bringing her hands out before her as if she wants to embrace the older. "It's only us!"

This sets the girls dancing and laughing again, and Kira screams.

All the mirrors break at the sound, and she thinks, well, that took care of that.

"Little puppet," the voice floats by, unbidden, and she can see a flash of her own red hair and wide-eyed smile in the shard before the girls leaps away, her hair a magnificent veil behind her.

"Murderer," another one echoes in the distance.

"Killer," the words bounce off each other, becoming louder and louder until Kira can't decipher them anymore.

"Wretched survivor!"

"Manipulator!"

"Puppeteer!"

"Clone."

All fall silent at the last one, and she dares look from where she is curled into a tight ball on the floor, hoping that it is over.

And then the screaming starts.

Kira doesn't know whether the laughter and screams belong to her or to the other her look-alikes because she knows she's done both at least once by now. The mirrors reform one by one with startling cracks, and the girls are now hooting banshees that tear with sharpened nails and bite with enlarged fangs. She doesn't try to resist them but instead she's now dancing and twirling with them, laughing and crying and screaming because she knows it's _hopeless_, until the adrenaline rush makes her collapse on the glass-ridden floor and now she's only giggling and sobbing to herself, to the pretty little girls' chants of murder.

Kira doesn't know how long she stays there, in that broken chamber of her mind, before the coma starts receding and she's back with Eriol and Flym again, in a room with barren walls that she's never been to before, her body and clothes bleeding and shredded with glass.

She looks up into Eriol's eyes over Flym's anxious face, and sees the strange guilt and expectancy there. She looks closer, and there it is – a flash of a dancing, white-dressed redhaired girl with shining eyes and a smile like the sun. Her mouth forms the words, but no sound escapes, and then she's back in the real world with machines beeping beside her.

She brings one hand up to her lips, feeling as if the words had somehow taken shape, and repeats them just to confirm their existence.

"I'm a… murderer."

_(she's known that for a long time but to her, these words have a different meaning now.)_

The next time she visits the cackling little girls dancing in her soul, she knows what to expect, and doesn't fight as they pull her away with them and dance and move until she doesn't even know which laughing young child she is supposed to be.

All she knows is that they're her _(in a way)_, she's them _(twisted and deceived)_, and she's their murderer _(because only the strongest manage to survive, with some help.)_


	3. CreationFeeling

_**Disclaimer: **__Final Fantasy VII and everything associated with it does not belong to me…_

**Warning: **medium-heavy spoilers.

**Creation  
**#36 - feeling

Sometimes, Eriol forgets that he's not supposed to feel.

He catches himself observing the blooming young girl that he's watched over his whole entire existence and there's something in the space where his heart is supposed to go that tightens and he doesn't know what's happening, because the next thing he knows is that he wants to call her over sooner than needed and tell her everything that's happened to her, to him, and the connection that's kept him guarding her for so long.

And then he pulls back from those thoughts and thinks to himself: what's happening to me? His usually logical mind can't come up with an answer because all Eriol's ever known is numbers and data and orders, from the first time he opened his empty eyes and saw the world through a blurred glass tube.

When the girl turns fifteen, he decides that it's finally time – he can't bear the thought of her living such a naïve life any longer so he appears to her, as he's done in the past when she was still kira_anna_someone and adapting the smile that's been programmed into his being, he holds out his hand to her and greets her, as if they've known each other forever and are merely two friends who haven't seen each other for a while – of course, to him, this is as close to the truth as it could get but Kira is startled, and he can see her heart tearing to get to him and is surprised, but she draws back nevertheless and he's beginning to wonder if he really should do this, if he should really ruin the semi-perfect, sugar coated wonderland she's living in.

Then the words of _have her live a good, perfect honest life _flash through his mind and he's abiding orders again, partly against his will. He tells some of the truth he can give at the moment and restores her memories, and then she's hurling glasses and vases and coat hangers at him and tearing at him with her screaming words before collapsing on the floor with a sob.

Eriol wonders, since when did the girl he knew become such a crybaby? The Kira he knew for the short while so long before was as stubborn as a mule and would rather turn on her own parents than shed a tear.

But then it hits him and he realizes – maybe this isn't the Kira he once knew-loved-protected; after all, she is now kira_anna_kira so she can't be the same all over again.

He conjures up one of the Guardians Hyne left with him from their last meeting and before he knows it, he's giving the smooth panel of stone to her and apologizing sincerely before he can't take the sight anymore and teleports out of Balamb and Gaia's atmosphere all together, retreating back to his safe haven where he can watch without being interrupted.

The girl hates him, he knows, and his non-existent heart contracts again before he steels his mind and decides that he isn't going to care because what's done is done and there's nothing to turn it back.

The next time he visits her, because Flym is calling and beginning him to come, Kira stares at him for a while before asking the question he's been dreading the most.

"Can you take me home?"

Eriol wonders how the vibrant girl that she's been here up until now is suddenly this cold and emotionless teenager – he catches the guns strapped to her thighs, and thinks that maybe this wasn't the best idea after all – maybe he messed up all over again, by allowing her to stay here.

He cocks his head to the side, watching her watching him; she wants only one answer, he knows, and he's starting to say no because she is, after all, in a coma back on the world known as Earth and he knows that in short time, her parents will cut off her life because no parent – biological or not – can take the sight of their child pale and dying, sprawled on a hospital bed.

"Yes," he says instead of the 'no' his mouth was forming and he's down-right shocked.

Kira's leaping forward, closer to him, her eyes sparkling in pure happiness and excitement, and she lets out a breathless little, "Really?"

Eriol is still shocked, so his mind overtakes and he's smiling at her again. "Not now, though." She's frowning at him and he quickly amends. "Later, yes. When you complete the rest of this game."

She's scowling now, glaring at him with a cold spark in her eyes that could have only come from being a mercenary-in-training. "I have to finish it?"

He's nodding at her in an affirmative. "That's correct." And before she can say anything else, he waves and sends her a charming grin on his autopilot. "But I will be going now. Have a good day."

He's gone, back to his haven, and he's staring into nothing, thinking dreadful thoughts of the situation he's just created.

I've really messed up now, haven't I? He asks the vast expanse of his mind, but as expected, gets no answer.

Eriol shakes his head, his hair brushing against his glasses and he thinks that he should really trim it but it's such a _human _motion that doesn't suit him at all since he's everything but that, so he ignores that and looks at the mirror hanging on the wall opposite of him.

He thinks of Kira, of Anna, of kira_anna_kira, and decides that maybe he should stop interfering as much – it hasn't really helped much, in the long term, has it? He made the little girl that was the first person he saw turn crazed, then turn humane, then disappear only to reappear as a much crueler being that wasn't quite human.

The spot in his chest throbs, and he thinks, this is all because of you, isn't it?

Eriol brings one hand and doesn't know whether he should be glad or not that there is still no heart thumping beneath his fingers. He quickly erases those thoughts and says, to the empty air that's out of the world's atmosphere and not quite to the palace of Hyne.

"Fool."

It's only one word, but it seals his determination, and the next time he goes back to visit the Kira that's not really the one he wants her to be, he's smiling and talking and his eyes are as empty as the day he was completed.

He has no feeling left in him because, after all, if it weren't for his guilty mind and non-existent heart that wanted to act as a human's would, nothing would be as serious as it was now.

And Eriol is completely fine with that, he muses, if it means he's protecting the child he vowed to take care of from any further harm inflicted by him.

Flym doesn't really believe him, and brings it up at one of their meetings, but he laughs at her words and asks, What do you know? You're only a spirit, in the end, after all.

He leaves Flym staring at him as he leaves the room, and as the door closes, he knows the last piece of any humanity left in him that he's locked away is now locked in that room, floating alongside his cruel words and Flym's tears.

Eriol is glad that he can't feel anymore as he strides far, far away.


	4. A Fork In The Road

A different set of one hundred themes. I also won't be putting up any more spoiler warnings, since I've already warned you guys in the summary.

* * *

_a fork in the road  
_**#34**

* * *

A fork in the road, she muses, lying in bed one night.

To the left, she can imagine seeing the tall woman that radiates pure, unimaginable power, holding out a clawed hand and waiting for her with a patient smile. Annabell is standing by her right side, her eyes regarding her silently with the crooked smile that Kira has now grown used to, not being able to decide whether she should be frightened or reassured by how many times she's seen it in her forgotten memories. Seifer stands at the Sorceress's left side, gunblade over one shoulder, his ever cocky smirk plastered on his face, his eyes watching her with a soft spark that's rarely seen there.

He calls her name, and she wonders, if this is her promised way home, then why is he standing there? The Sorceress and her apprentice both know that she would have to leave him behind all too soon, and that would deter her from wanting to go home all the more.

She turns her side to the right, and sees the waving figure of Selphie, grinning Zell, stoic Squall, smirking Irvine and smiling Quistis. _Where's Rinoa? _She wonders, and a movement behind Squall catches her eye as the black-haired young woman comes out, looking at her in guilt. Hesitant, she offers Kira a smile, and Kira smiles back after a second, realizing that Rinoa does feel some attachment to what's happening after all.

The Sorceress is Edea and Edea is Ultimecia and Ultimecia is all Adel and Edea and Rinoa and was she someone a long time ago too?

A fork in the road, she thinks again. To go to the one who's caused her much pain because she's offering her the chance to go home – a solid promise, a vow that she'd make, because she's so much more powerful than Eriol will ever dream to be, or to go with the ones that she's trying so hard but failing not to care about? The people that will stand by her side, faithful, even as she struggles with her inner demons.

But then there will be no way to go home.

_What's home to me, now? _Kira wonders, and turns over on her side to fall into an uneasy sleep, because she's too selfish to decide right now.


	5. Coffee

* * *

_coffee_**  
#32**

* * *

"Wakey wakey, Kira."

She mumbles something in answer, burrowing deeper into her covers and hiding from the sunshine pouring in through the blinds of her window. Selphie pouts, crossing her arms over her chest, and begins to tap her foot in impatience.

"Kiiira, you promised me that you'd help me with the Garden Festival!" When she gets no response, the pout on the brunette's lips turns into a petite scowl and she reaches over to poke the mess of red hair peeking out under the blanket.

"Kira!"

Half-asleep, Kira blinks open one eye up at her friend before closing it and giving a heavy, sleep-laden sigh.

"No. Now go 'way."

Selphie's foot tapping gets harder with every passing second, and Siren's musical laughter in her mind isn't helping the matter.

_Perhaps you can bribe her with that drink you humans seem to worship? _Quezacotl suggests, his voice failing to hide the undertone of his amusement at the situation. Selphie is too busy to get mad at him, however, because her eyes light up and she's scanning the SeeD's room for any signs of a coffee pot.

When she spots a half-full cup of last night's coffee instead, her eyes narrow in mischievous manners and she creeps forward to it, grabbing it with one arm and slinks back to the bed where her unsuspecting friend is dozing.

With a wide smile, Selphie turns over the cup in her hand without hesitation and watches the semi-warm liquid pour down on the sleeping redhead.

Kira's startled scream echoes through the sleepy Garden, and the two girls arrive late to the Garden Festival meeting anyways, both sporting dark wet patches on their clothes and stray pillow feathers in their hair.


	6. Time

* * *

_time_  
**#70**

* * *

"You came."

She shrugs as she joins her mirror twin in watching the quiet ocean as the last of the sun leaves the sky, blooming flowers curling around their feet. The petals are closing as they get ready for the night ahead, but the field is still covered in specks of white, blue, and yellow.

It's beautiful, Kira thinks, and wonders as to how she could have ever forgotten it.

"Because they weren't your memories," Anna answers softly, and Kira is no longer mad at the girl for peeking into her mind. It's comforting, somehow, reminding her of Flym but at the same time flooding her with a sense of belonging.

"I think," she says, choosing her words slowly and carefully, "That this was my first real home."

Anna nods, understanding, waiting for her companionallyenemy to continue. "In the first few minutes, when you and I were one for the first time… I think that's the only time I was ever really myself. Before Eriol changed me."

The two fall quiet, and when the last few rays of light dance across the water, Anna sighs and gives a bitter smile. "We're a trinity, aren't we?"

Kira_anna_kira.

"Kira-Anna-Kira," the SeeD echoes, and for the barest of moments, reaches out beside her to touch the flickering figure of a redhaired girl not unlike them before she's gone.

"But, I wonder, which one of us is the beginning… and which one of us is the end?"

"Just like Lady Sorceress."

Kira's smile is a grimace. "Rinoa. Ultimecia. Edea."

"A trinity with no clear beginning or end."

"I wonder… will we be like that? A never-ending cycle…"

Anna is silent, and Kira is fine with that, knowing that she doesn't know how to answer that question either.

"…I don't want to know the answer." Curious, Kira looks at the girl that's the bansheeenemymartyr, but Anna is still staring out into the ocean. She's free for the first time, Kira realizes. Free from the Original's influence.

"When the time comes, don't be scared."

She smiles into the distance, then into Kira's eyes, and falls from the cliff edge. The rational side of Kira is waiting for the splash from below, but the Kira part that is no longer Kira is walking away from the waves as the sun slips below the horizon.

The next time the two meet in Time Compression, Anna's face is shining even as she lies in a pool of her own crimson blood, while all Kira can thinks of is _redredredred that could be me down there._

The dying girl laughs, as if she can sense the other's thoughts, before closing her eyes and Kira knows that the kira_anna _part of their kira_anna_kira trinity is no longer there.

But we're a trinity, she thinks as she picks up her pace towards where she can hear Selphie yelling out. We're a trinity that never begins or ends, so some day, we'll be together again.

And somehow, she looks forward to that day, no matter the pain it'll cause her, because, in her opinion, the loneliness is far much worse.


	7. Gown

* * *

_gown_  
**#81**

* * *

The party's about to start and she's still standing in front of her mirror, motionless.

_It hurts_, she decides as her reflection's eyes gaze back into her own. _It hurts, but only a little bit._ It hurts only a little bit because it wasn't really her who was here before, so the feelings are only mere shadows, bouncing around in her mind.

Just like me? she asks the empty room, the wind sweeping in through her window, and she gets the feeling that it's laughing.

'Look at you,' Anna's voice hums in her mind, her words a matching beat to the rhythm of her heart. 'Look at me. There's never any us.'

It brings some sort of odd comfort to Kira's mind, although she knows that it wasn't supposed to. No, of course not; her pseudo-twin is just always reminding her look-alike that they'll never be one again – never, never again, if Anna has anything to say about it.

'Look at you, look at me…' she repeats the words to the girl before her presence leaves the SeeD's mind, only a fleeting stray thought giving any clue as to her being there in the first place.

'I'll be watching.'

_And so you will be, _Kira muses, smiling wryly at the pretty girl staring back at her from the mirror – flowing dress, sparkling jewelry, pale complexion and shining eyes. For a moment, she wonders, if this is really her, and not another deluded illusion.

"Come on, Kira!" Selphie's voice comes from outside the door, knocking her out of her thoughts, and Kira thinks – yes, no, maybe? this is me.

Her mind is still whirling, knowing that the sorceress will be watching through her apprentice's eyes, but the girl is still selfish so the only thing running through her mind is, _I'll prove to you, Anna, I'll prove to you that we're different. _

She sweeps a tube of red lipstick across her lips – so unlike herself but she doesn't care – and plasters on a bright smile to her face, watching the girl in the mirror transform.

"Kir_aaa_!"

She's out of her thoughts again – half baked plans of revenge on the demons plaguing her mind and cheery little memories that she's beginning to doubt – and glides to open the door, giggling along with her friend as they appraise each other's ball-worthy appearances.

She's not herself right now – but unlike all the other times she's actually in control – but she doesn't mind, because as she catches the amused grey eyes hidden in the shadows, watching, trailing her every move, she steels her mind and sends a sharp smile their way.

Look at me, she imagines herself saying through the action. Look at me – I don't need you to make me shine.

And as she joins her laughing, relaxed friends under the glowing chandeliers and city lights of Esthar, she's managed to convince herself so, if only for the time being.

* * *

_Look at you, look at me  
There's never any us  
Can't you see, all we can become  
We can shine, like the sun  
Cause we believe that two stars are brighter than one_

- two stars


	8. Beginning

* * *

_the beginning_  
#1

* * *

Every story must have a beginning.

Kira's story just doesn't have one.

She doesn't know where it all began. Was it—

_EriolJenovaLifestreamHyneUltimecia_Magic_?_

Kira's story sometimes feels like a dream. She can't help but find herself gazing off into the distance, thinking _what if_?

What if _I woke up_?

What if _I'm not asleep_?

What if _I'm already dead?_

What if _I'm just plain crazy?_

What if…

_Anna tells the truth?_

"Oi, Kira, you still with us?" She doesn't answer the question, just turns in Zell's direction and stares.

_What if this is all real?_

"Kira?"

"I'm fine."

_RealityDreamHazeDrugWhat?_

"If you're sure."

Smile.

"Of course."

Kira's story_dream _is not a dream anymore.

It's a nightmare.

And if that's so, then she doesn't want to know where it all starts.

...


	9. Dawn

* * *

_dawn_  
#84

* * *

Time Compression is night.

Kira loves the night, for its quiet and peace and serenity, but somehow she cannot bring herself to look up into the night sky here and lose herself amidst the stars. The night here is artificial and false and pretend and she feels as if the world is playing dress-up, twirling and spinning in laughter and calling for her to look at it, look at it as it bends to her every whim and lets her play God, if only for a little while.

Kira can see why Ultimecia and Eriol enjoy it, because the power is intoxicating.

The earth shifts under feet for a moment and she knows that she should get going to the Orphanage – _no don't think about it _– but it's okay if she wait for a little while longer, right? Her flowerfield is in place now under her sky but something is off and she thinks, _Anna is not here. Anna is missing._

Kira feels sick when she realizes that the sanctuary is hers alone to control. _Where's anna she should be here it's not right where are you anna?—_

All of a sudden she wants the dawn to come.

Her dawn isn't Dawn but Selphie's steadying hand on her should as she topples over to her knees and gasps into the dead soil and the dead bodies and it's all deaddeaddead—

(Ultimecia is gone and when Time Compression fades away with her, all Kira can think as she collapses against the window panels of the Ragnarok is that the dawn rising up outside is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

The faint hum inside her body that's Not-Anna agrees.)

...

_I'm back. (: ITSN won't be updated for some time again, until inspiration strikes me again. Sorry, guys. ):_


	10. Please

* * *

_please_  
#2

* * *

Kira is broken.

"Please…"

Her words fall to stubborn ears, muted in the whispers they are uttered in. Shining hair, now dull in the metal room, falls limply to her shoulders and her eyes are too empty to even cry anymore, so she looks up to the invisible ceiling and begs.

"Please!"

Her guns are long gone now. The sword, once so precious and _wowit'ssomaginificent!_ lies useless in the corner of her prison, and some part of her – the SeeD that's so used to fighting that only knows _black _and _white_ – is snarling at her to stop begging _fool!_ but she just plain doesn't care anymore.

Annabelle's dim laughter falls to her ears as the low hum of magic fills the air, deaf to the pleas of her mirror-twin.

"We were born for this," are her last whispered words in the humid air and Kira is gasping, panting, and contracting her lungs because _goddamit she can't breathe!_ then falling forward.

She's awake, staring emptily into the ceiling of her Garden dorm room before turning on her side into the pillow and swearing that she will never beg in the face of an enemy ever again.

(weeks later anna is the one pleading for her death and kira thinks that hearing such words coming from the girl is a horrible blasphemy to her existence.)

...


	11. Doppleganger

* * *

_doppelganger_  
#75

* * *

"Who are you?"

_You're me._

"Who are _you_?"

You should know.

"You're my copy."

_Of course you are._

"Or maybe you're _my _copy."

There's only one place for the Original.

"What does it matter anymore?"

_That's not right._

"Are you so sure of that?"

I'm the beginning of our trinity.

"Of course I am. We're still all ourselves, you know?"

_I want to hate you, but I can't._

"Yes, maybe we are."

…Not.

"Do you hate me?"

_Anna does._

"Yes, I'm pretty sure I do."

You're my death.

"Why?"

_I need a reason to hate you._

"You're the future I never had."

_You stole my life and became my doppelganger._

...


	12. The End

* * *

_the end_  
#100

* * *

Kira finds it ironic.

The monster before her roars in pain as she puts a bullet through its skull, piercing the creature's simple track mind with the ruthless metal.

Selphie shouts beside her – a simple "The End!" and the battlefield is swept away from the scenery of crude mountains and harsh soil. Kira stands by the carcass of the dead Geezard sprawled at her feet, maw agape in one last feral scream, watching in careless detachment as the monsters before her simply vanish out of existence. Their howls are sped away by the sweet breeze dancing through the endless meadow of flowers, stretching on and on beyond where the human eye can see.

Irvine congratulates the beaming brunette on a job well done, gun over one shoulder, all charm and flirtatious smiles, but Kira stands alone with a twisted grin on her face as she stares far into the distance of the familiar landscape.

_Ironic indeed, _she thinks as her and Anna's sanctuary begins to fade out of the human realm, swearing that she can hear her mirror-twin laughing not far off somewhere.

...


	13. Distance

_

* * *

  
distance_  
#39

Flym hated the fact that she cared.

Hyne had given her from the High Court to the confused Little Not-Boy in her palace, her smile and whispered words in her ear the only warning she had before The Palace was gone and the familiar pressure of Gaia's atmosphere set it. The Not-Boy stared at her long and hard – "Eriol." _Flym. _– before sighing and placing his forehead on hers, his startling touch swamping her in the rush of his hurled memories.

She learned more than she ever wanted that day.

_I'm Flym._

"Eriol?"

"She's Flym."

"I'm…Kira?"

A feral grin.

_We're going to have a lot of fun, Ki_ra.

Flym was not a mothering figure, so she didn't quite understand what the feeling was when she was taken away from her charge but all she could think was—

_She's aloneAllALONEKIRA…!?_

She cried in Hyne's arms amidst the reassuring words, and realized that for the first time in her life, the distance apart was beginning to kill her.


	14. Heart

_

* * *

heart_  
#40

Annabelle's heart didn't beat.

She didn't realize at first that her chest didn't go _boom-boom _anymore and when she did, all she managed to do was marvel for the moment of a (non-existent) heartbeat before her Kira was calling and it was time to go-go-go, and she was under the spell again so the next moment Edea was smiling at her and the trauma was pushed to the back of her mind.

"Don't you have a heart?" The words didn't do what they were meant to do – it was a sincere, albeit angry question – and Anna was looking at the Other Kira and laughing, laughing and crying.

"I wish."

Her Kira tittered with giggles in glee, screeching and murmuring inside of her mind, reassuring—

_My heart is enough for the both of us._

And Annabelle didn't want to tell her that she didn't have one either.


	15. Lover

_

* * *

lover_  
#42

She only sees him when she dreams.

The Garden is abandoned. She has mapped out every step in her mind as she explores the grand building, from the outer gate and the gargoyle's flank to the window pane of the Headmaster's empty office. Her nose presses against the dream-glass and she watches the world outside float by as the Garden moves over oceans and planes, cities and bridges, monsters and people. The edges of her vision are blurred from the effect of the dreamscape world, and she traces the outlines of buildings and continents as she remembers them.

Ghosts of ballroom waltzes dance through the air as she moves through the empty space afterwards, her body almost taking a mind of its own as her feet bring her to the royal ballroom of Balamb Garden. She's stepping out onto one of the many balconies, her body shivering in the imagined breeze she thinks she can feel as a million stars glitter overhead, the water of the ocean lapping at Garden's walls as they float tranquilly over it.

A sigh escapes her lips into the air and then he's there with her, standing so close behind her that she can feel the heat of his body through her clothes and it brings a smile on her face because _in dreams anything can happen_. She turns so she now faces him, her back to the world and wraps her arms around his body, careless of the fact that he's her enemy and the right hand man of the woman who is the reason she's always suffering. She forgets the words he's spoken to her, standing on the opposite side of the battlefield, and the way his weapon flew through the air towards her, aiming for her heart.

She's dreaming in a coma, and when you're sleeping, you have all the time in the world to forget.

His arms come around her almost instantly, tightening around her body and she buries her head in his chest, her heart beating to the faint ebb of the music inside. He rests his forehead against her hair and mutters that he's sorry, so so sorry over and over again, and this is the way that she knows that he's not really here but just a figment of her imagination.

The Seifer she remembers from her days of Garden is long gone, hidden deep under the spell Ultimecia has cast on him.

It's always night in the Garden of her dreams and he's never there half of the time she's asleep, brooding as she walks through the hallways she knows should be filled with chatter and laughter. She sets foot into the ballroom and it's an enchanted fairytale, a waltz picking up under the moonlight suddenly shining through the skylights overhead. Her clothes are swept away and she's wearing the ball gown Bella picked out for her for the SeeD graduation dance that she never attended, instead busy packing for her short stay at Galbadia in the silence of her dorm room.

Silhouettes of couples dance past her, transparent ghosts that she can never quite focus on because she's never known them in the first place, and then Nida is standing before her with a hand out to dance, his shy smile on his face and his hair flopping over his eyes. She hesitates for the moment of a heartbeat and then accepts the invitation to dance because he's just as she remembers him, when they were both younger and smaller, more foolish and innocent and so in love. He's now much taller than her, his body not as warm as she'd imagine it to be in real life outside her halcyon dreams, but this is the closest she'll let him to her for now because they both are moving on.

A cough interrupts the silence of them dancing and they pause mid-step, Nida's face breaking into a small, approving smile as he drops her hands and steps back into the crowd, his eyes warm on hers before he disappears. Seifer steps in without a moment's pause and she's laughing because for once, he's the Seifer she knows, dressed in baggy black pants and white trench coat, and he's just like she remembers as he draws her around and around the ballroom floor, his movements stiff and jerky. She draws him closer to her in an attempt to calm the ghost of her memories, their steps faltering until they're merely swaying on the edges of the moving crowd.

The music falls quieter as they dance, her arms tight around his shoulders and his around her waist, her eyes closed as she rests her head against his shoulder. Seifer's arms tense around her body after a moment and he laughs, a low, somber sound that startles her and she looks up into his eyes, watching as they swirl with emotion.

"I have got to be dreamin'," he mutters to her, his eyes running over her face as he brings one hand to graze her cheek gently. Kira frowns now, her mind registering such a non-Seifer action, and cocks her head to the side.

"What do you mean?" Her voice is stiff from its lack of use and she has to clear it a few times before the words come out right. He shakes his head and stays silent for a moment.

"The girl that looks just like you…" Her eyes narrow at the mention as her mind unwillingly flashes over to Annabelle; a tendril of jealously settles in her heart and she shoots it down. Seifer's gaze softens as his finger runs over the smooth skin of her face, his voice a pitch quieter as he finishes his sentence.

"…She said you were dead." He pauses again, his voice breaking before he regains his control. His eyes gaze past her for a second, lost in the memory. "And she said I was the one who killed you."

The music comes to a halt as her mind runs the words over in her head again and again. _'She said you were dead,_' she can just imagine Annabelle telling the Knight those words. The memory of his gunblade against her chest and his lips against hers spins itself over and over again in her mind until it's just one blur of noise and pain, and she shakes it away, her arms tightening around his body subconsciously.

"I'm not dead," she says softly, her eyes gazing up at his in determination. "But you're not real."

A look of confusion passes over Seifer's face at the words and the two stop completely, even as the ballroom wavers and they're outside on the balconies over the sea yet again, all alone.

A sigh escapes Kira's lips as the scenery changes. A gazillion stars sparkle overhead, the moon bright as it casts its light over the water, illumination a pathway from the horizon. "I'm still dreaming," she smiles into his eyes, reaching up to cup her hands around his face. "And that's why I can do this."

His shocked look barely registers in her mind before her eyes slip closed and she's pressing her lips against his, almost afraid to come in such close contact with him, but his arms around her waist are a solid reassurance and she smiles against his lips as he kisses her back with a passion. A million thoughts and feelings fly through her head, all intermingled and jumbled until the only things she knows are Seifer, the feel of his mouth moving against hers, and the way he makes her feel as if she's on top of the world.

Later, when he's gone yet again without a moment's warning and she's sitting alone on the railing of the balcony, watching over the sparkling waves beneath with a small smile on her face, she lets the idea of staying here in Gaia for the rest of her life pass through her mind without any worries interrupting it.

And maybe, she decides as her eyes slip closed and she replays the moment in her head, he could be the person she wouldn't mind spending the rest of her life with.

But just maybe.


	16. Insanity

Just a warning…this is really messed. :/

_insanity_  
#35

--

she's running running all the time she doesn't know which way to go at the crossroads left right up down back? no no going back they're there she can't let them have her if they do it's all over and all the lies they told her she can in no way face them again it'll hurt so _so much and dammit where is she running to now?_

"DAMMIT KIRA, SLOW DOWN! KIRA!"

the words are too loud she can't make sense of anything that's going on her mouth can't form the words she can't find the will to speak—

she turns another corner His footsteps still following behind her and she's five again, playing hide and seek in the garden with her imaginary friend but when did she ever have one? maybe it wasn't so imaginary at all and maybe annabelle was the one giggling through the air behind the trees as little kira counted it's a

_one two three four five ,_

run kira run! the monsters are behind your back they'll catch up if you're not careful ooh we don't want that now do we?

_six seven eight nine ten –_

who am i? no silly this isn't you thinking i have all the control now but guess what _i am you we are one we are—_

_I'M COMING FOR YOU !_

you, me, her, us – babe, we're a trinity and you can't escape us you can always try and who knows maybe one day the caged bird will trick its master and will fly out the window but we're not birds now are we?

"KIRA! STOP IT THIS INSTANT!"

who's calling me? i remember Him – he's the one that makes me feel all these stupid feelings going through my head that i don't want to feel because one day this all will be over and i'll be home and He'll be here all alone and we'll have no way to be together…_no one can love through a television screen—_

"KIRA!"

"_DON'T CALL ME THAT!"_

i'm not kira i'm notnotnot i'm kiraannakira we're all one and the same and we're perfectly happy being together at last because THE WORLD IS A WONDERFUL PLACE WHEN THERE IS NO TIME FLOWING

"_GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"_

"SHH IT'S OKAY, I'M HERE WITH YOU."

THERE IS NO TIME TOGETHER WE'LL BE TOGETHER FOREVER WHERE NO ONE CAN HURT US

_don't try to force me out. i am you. i control you. don't you want me to tell you who you truly are?_

keep on running little girl from these monsters…don't let them get the best of you! they'll use you over and over again just as everyone else has done over and over again—

"KIRA…WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?"

_that's right, my little kira… let me hold you. we can be together forever and ever and ever…_

DON'T LET THEM GET THE BEST OF YOU KIRA LANNING THEY'LL SEND YOU INTO—

**insanity**.

_i love you, my most precious enemy._

…


	17. Childhood

_childhood_  
#48

--

Once upon a time she was happy.

She had a mother. A father, and brother. True, the mother wasn't always there and the father went from one to daddy to another; the brother cried too much and banged his annoying little toys together until she had a headache, but she was happy.

Then the mother went away for a time, and the father just smiled and said that everything was okay. The brother started crying even more so and as she lay in bed at night, the hushing from the other room lulled her to sleep too because no one was there to sing lullabies to chase away the nightmares. Sometimes she dreamt of great, green dragons lurking under her bed and sometimes she dreamt of men coming to smuggle her away; but most of all her mind liked dreamed of stone cottages by the sea and cold metal rooms that kept on flashing between each other so fast, until her mind conjured up a faceless little boy to hold out his hand to her until the images disappeared completely.

Then mommy came back all laughter and smiles and she was happy again. She learned things at her new school and the little girls liked to giggle with her and tell stories of what went on at home. The watching boys liked to pull on braids and on skirts until the room was one loud, messy grade fighting so that the teacher had to come in and yell "QUIET!" for them to shut up. She was still happy thought because to them it was all funny, and didn't Mrs. Robinson look much more like a hairy mouse today than ever? It was all games and chatter and giggles and no obligations to them at that point in life.

"Once upon a time," she's like to say to the eyes waiting, watching her every move, "I remember being happy."

But "once upon a time" refers to something so very long ago, and her mind can't find the transition that went from HAPPY to ANGRY to _depressed, _so she has to settle for gunfire at straw dummies and the monsters out on the fields to take out her anger on, or at least until her brain can go DING and she'd open her mouth and laugh:

"_Once upon a time? Why, I've always been happy!"_

Or so she dreams.


End file.
